Today's take: Nineteenth century house, now gone, may have taken answers with it

Oct. 17, 2013

House at 619 Porlier St. in Green Bay built in 1885 was demolished Oct. 7. It was on the National Historic Register and known as the Anna Earle Robb home. Anna Earle Robb was an early champion for women's rights. This painting was found in the attic as parts of the home were being salvaged. / Submitted

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House at 619 Porlier St. in Green Bay built in 1885 was demolished Oct. 7. It was on the National Historic Register and known as the Anna Earle Robb home. Anna Earle Robb was an early champion for women's rights. This painting was found in the attic as parts of the home were being salvaged. / Submitted

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Their faces stare sadly out from the canvas, almost as if they knew, 100 years later, theyíd be part of a mystery.

Two pretty little red-haired kids, a boy in shorts, a girl in a pinafore, and their pretty red-haired mom, all looking grief-stricken and maybe even a little reproachful that someone took the time to paint a portrait eventually forgotten in an attic for two or three generations.

Neither Miss Marple nor Sherlock Holmes are involved in this investigation. Just local history buff Jeanne Biebel and her cousin, Pat Drury, a builder who likes to salvage mantels, cornices and gingerbread from century-old houses and sometimes stumbles across cool old pieces of furniture and fixtures that nobody wants until he cleans them up and repaints them.

In this case, Drury got permission to salvage stuff from a 128-year-old house condemned by the city. It was a classic old place, 619 Porlier St., identified on the National Historic Register as the home of Anna Earle Robb, said to be an early champion for womenís rights in Green Bay.

The house came down last week, but not before Drury rummaged through it and came across the portrait. It was facing the wrong way against a wall in the attic with a bunch of junk piled in front of it, and, of course, it had no signature, no written information. Drury and Biebel are convinced nobody even knew it was there since forever.

Anna Earle Robbís dad, Dr. James Robb, built the place in his own backyard in 1885. Anna and her new husband, Frank Washburn, lived in it for a few years, and then she moved back into it in 1902, when Frank was killed in a spectacular train wreck in the Park Avenue tunnel outside of Grand Central Station in New York City.

So maybe the portrait is of the newly widowed Anna and her kids? The clothing, the momís hair-do all look about right for the time period, and certainly the facial expressions fit.

Nope. Biebel traveled down that road and found that Anna and Frank had a daughter but not a son, and those two kids in the painting are surely siblings.

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Could the portrait be of members of the Parmentier family? The Robb family sold the home to another newly widowed woman, Margaret Parmentier, in 1919. Margaret moved into the house with her two kids after suffering the loss of her husband. Could it be them?

Nope, thatís another cul-de-sac. Biebelís research shows the Parmentiers had two sons, no daughter. True, the house stayed in the Parmentier family for many decades thereafter, but look at the portrait: thereís that hair style on the woman, the old-fashioned clothing. Itís highly unlikely the portrait was done after the 1920s, so it can hardly be one of the later Parmentiers.

Biebel is convinced the portrait has something to do with the Robb family. Anna had six siblings, and they all had a pile of kids. The portrait could be of any of those others. Biebel hasnít yet chased that part of the investigation; the siblings all moved away, to Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, where itís a little tougher for Biebel to check death records and register of deeds offices.

But Biebel did recently uncover another clue: Annaís mother, in her will, bequeathed a piano and a painting done by Anna to Annaís daughter. Note thereís a piano in the mystery portrait, although nothing about the will identifies the subject of the painting, nor does it even identify that painting as a portrait. The record also contains no information on how Anna may have acquired the artistic skill that such a portrait would have required. And if the mystery portrait was the painting referred to in the will, why didnít the granddaughter take the painting when she moved out east?

The trail grows cold. The granddaughter is long deceased, of course; even the great-granddaughter is gone, having died in 2008 at age 82.

Almost nothingís left of the mystery but three sad faces rendered in oil paint, captured for a posterity that lost interest a long time ago.

Biebel and Drury arenít ready to declare it a cold case. Biebel hopes the internet will help her track down surviving descendants out east. Drury will maintain custody of the portrait, which now hangs rather incongruously in his Ledgeview workshop, a Victorian-era icon in a room full of power tools and paint cans.

ďItíd be neat to see the picture go back to the home where it belongs,Ē he says.